The source for this summary is http://theportugalnews.com. Latest update was March 4, 2019.

The government of Portugal’s plan to build a spaceport on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores has attracted 14 preliminary bids from several countries, including Russia, China and the United States. When complete in 2021, the Atlantic International Satellite Launch Programme will be used to launch small satellites into space.

Algarve house prices rise below national average

Property prices in the Algarve region of Portugal rose by 13% during the third quarter of 2018, however this was found to be below the national average of 15.6%. This is the third consecutive quarter that housing price increases have been below the Portuguese average and demonstrates the erratic behavior of the market in the region, when compared to the rest of the country.

The annual rate of the Portuguese Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 0.9% in February, an uptick compared with a 0.5% rise in January, Portugal's national statistics institute said.Portugal’s unemployment rate in January is estimated to have increased by 0.1 of a percentage point to 6.7%.

Fewer people applying for citizenship

In comparison to 2016, in 2017, 28.2 percent fewer people applied for Portuguese nationality. Naturalization, followed by “marriage or de facto union with Portuguese citizens for more than three years", and having a child with a Portuguese partner remained the main routes for foreigners who did acquire Portuguese nationality.

This is according to data released this past week by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). According to INE's demographic statistics, the population has been dwindling continually since 2010, although it has subsided in the last four years.

This is according to data released this past week by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). According to INE's demographic statistics, the population has been dwindling continually since 2010, although it has subsided in the last four years.

Total passengers traveling through Lisboa’s airport will surpass 29 million in 2018

In 2017 passenger traffic at Humberto Delgado airport rose by 18.8% year-on-year to a total of 26.7 million passengers. Following his speech at a conference on air navigation in Lisbon, Secretary of State Guilherme W. d'Oliveira Martins projected 29 million passengers will travel through Lisboa’s airport.

Portugal’s fertility rate one of the lowest in the EU

Portugal, according to a new study published in medical journal The Lancet, has an average birth rate of 1.3 children per woman, which is the second lowest birth rate in Europe and one of the lowest in the world. This, the research suggests, is largely due to women prioritizing professional careers as well as easy access to health care. Portugal is among a worldwide group of just 91 countries where the average birth rate sits below two children. Within the EU, only Cyprus has a lower birth rate. The study by the University of Washington, published in The Lancet and reported by Spanish news agency Efe, shows that in the EU, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus all have birth rates that fall below the European average of 1.6 children. The two EU countries with the highest fertility are Ireland and France. Spain has an average of 1.4 children per woman, and Cyprus just one child per woman. On the other hand, the study shows, Niger is the country where women have most children, at an average of seven. Niger leads the birth list (7.1), followed by Chad (6.7), Somalia (6.1) and Mali (6). Over half of the world’s nations have fertility rates less than the replacement rate. A number of Portuguese municipalities have in recent years launched initiatives to attract young families to them, which include tax breaks and incentives for those looking to start families. Portugal has been battling to boost its struggling birth rate and ageing population for almost a decade, having registered negative results since 2009. Exacerbating this, according to newspaper Jornal de Notícias, is news that Portugal last year lost some 32,000 residents. However, last autumn it did experience something of a ‘baby boom’, for the first time in almost a decade, with over 1,000 babies born in October and November 2017.

New figures have revealed that workers have seen their wages increase across most pay levels. While civil servants saw their average wages rise to 880 euros, general workers earning under 600 euros dropped by 13 percent.

Workers taking home between 600 and 900 euros rose by around 9 percent, while those clearing up to 1,200 were up by 8 percent. An increase of almost 10 percent was seen by those whose net pay is up to 1,800 euros, while wages of people earning more than that grew by 7 percent.

Exports of Portuguese wine last year (2018) swelled in volume by 3.3%, to 806 million hectolitres, according to a report by Informa D&B.

According to the report, the country's trade surplus in wine also grew, to €648 million in 2018 from €634 million in 2017, despite "notable" growth in imports, of 15.3%. Despite the growth in exports, estimated production for the 2018/2019 production year slipped to 5.30 million hectolitres, around 20% less than the amount registered in the previous year, when there had been a 11.9% increase, the report added. Informa D&B also noted that 43% of exports corresponded to fortified wine, such as port, which alone accounted for 40% of the total amount exported.

In terms of regions, port wine and table wine from the Douro had the highest volume of production, representing 21.5% of the total for 2017/2018, followed by Lisbon, at 18%, the Minho and the Alentejo, at 14% each, and Beiras, at 12%. The main markets for Portuguse wine were in the European Union, which as a whole represented 60% of total sales, with the UK and France the largest single national markets. Outside the EU, the main destinations were the US, Brazil, Canada and Angola, according to the report.